


War Wounds

by amaranthinecanicular



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-11-08
Updated: 2014-11-25
Packaged: 2018-02-24 13:46:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 14,385
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2583563
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amaranthinecanicular/pseuds/amaranthinecanicular
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In one world, Felix stabs Tucker, and Tucker stands back up. In one world he endures phantom pain and scar tissue and nightmare, but he survives, and continues to survive, and be a survivor. He learns his way around soldiers and death and can smile at it, the same way he smiles at his friends. He lives and he stands beside Washington as they face a new enemy, in one world.</p><p>This is not that world.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Washington dreams.

“Jesus Christ, you never go easy on a guy.” Tucker’s hands are braced on his knees, and Wash can hear him panting through the speakers of his helmet. “Bow chika bow wow.”

“It doesn’t work if you do it to yourself.”

_“Bow chika bow wow.”_

Wash ignores him. He takes a deep breath, stretches back, pops his shoulders and his hips and his spine, ow, just there. There are protesting bruises on both his sides, the small unguarded spaces by his abdomen. Tucker’s getting better.

“You’re getting better,” he says, because Tucker deserves to know, and beneath the derisive snort and inappropriate comment that follows Washington can tell he’s pleased. “Keep it up and one day you might even be a real soldier.”

"Hey, you know what? Fuck you."

At that point Caboose, who had been watching the spar with interest if not understanding, hops up to fetch them both water. Washington takes the opportunity to walk the few yards to a more preferable cool-down location: the dappled shade beneath a tree with sparse yellow-green leaves, pressed snug against the red of the canyon wall. He runs his fingers over a matching set of scars in the trunk and the rock, bullet wounds from an incident a week ago involving Caboose and a cake and an assault rifle. Beneath the Kevlar they feel the same, the bark and the stone, rough and solid and firm. It’s strangely comforting.

He begins to unlatch his armor, methodical and memorized. Gauntlets, both arms, shoulders. He stops there and shuts his eyes, content to sit in the quiet until Caboose returns with refreshments – if he’s lucky it will actually be water – but they snap back open seconds later when Tucker sits heavily beside him, still fully armored. He watches, silent and wary, as the turquoise soldier balances his forearms on his knees, tips his head back against the rock, breathes. His chest rises and falls much quicker than Washington’s, made all the more apparent by the bulky chest piece, bobbing up and down. In the back of Wash’s mind a voice tells him that he’ll need to start teaching them proper breathing techniques. In the front of his mind a voice is telling him that their shoulders are touching, sun-heated armor to undersuit, a steady, warm contact.

Tucker jostles him lightly – less steady, but warmer. “Scoot over, asshole, you’re hogging all the shade.”

“There’s plenty of other shade, you know. We don’t have to share.” He scoots over anyway, and Tucker snorts.

“Or you could just stop being a dick. I got enough of that from Church, try being original.”

Wash can’t suppress a small huff of laughter, and tries to decide whether he’s amused or annoyed by Tucker’s sarcastic “Agent All Work No Play is laughing, holy shit, is the world ending?” He settles on shaking his head because the jury is still out on that one. Tucker doesn’t talk about Church much - that he just brought him up on his own and without any accompanying snarls and curses means it’s been a Good Day. Washington stops to think about it, for a moment, and decides that yes, it was.

"Jesus, it’s fucking hot." Tucker thumbs the release seal at the bottom of his chin and tugs the helmet off, dark ropes of hair tumbling out. There’s sweat beading at his temples and running from his scalp, winking in the light. His tongue is startlingly pink as it darts out to catch a droplet running past his lip.

Wash really doesn’t see his teammates out of their armor much. His memory is infallible, but meeting Tucker’s unnaturally bright gaze for the first time in a while is always a little startling. He’s got eyes like Connie’s knives, sharp and silver and dipped in acid. They flash the same way, reflecting light back so that his pupils seem to splinter with light, at the right angle, so that they glow in the dark. They’re not normal eyes - not even human eyes, Wash wants to say, because the only time he’s ever seen eyes like that was when he was fighting for his life, close combat as marines died around him and blood burned in his eyes, and he watched the life drain out of the eyes of a Covenant trooper as he stuck it between the armor plating at it’s throat.

Tucker’s got one of those eyes cracked open now, glaring at him, radioactive and sharp.

"Take a picture, perv, it’ll last longer."

"I wasn’t looking at you," Washington snaps, even as he averts his gaze behind the visor. He stops as his eyes immediately fixate on something else. Blinks.

“What are those?” Tucker looks at him like he’s lost it – it’s a familiar look, by now – so he leans over and points vaguely at the back of the other soldier’s head to clarify. “Those. Those, uh…” Squint, try to peer through the dreads. “Tattoos?”

Tucker’s eyes light up, shards of silver fractured by the sun. “Oh, those. Yeah, I got those from the aliens.”

Washington reels. He probably shouldn’t be shocked, especially with Tucker’s history, but he is. “The _Covenant?_ ”

“The _Sangheilis_ , you racist dipshit.” He rolls his eyes so hard that Wash thinks he’d have been able to feel it even with the helmet on. “Yeah, man, some honorary tribal shit. Used this fancy glowing acid stuff. Stung like a bitch, but pretty badass, huh?”

He assumes that yes, they are pretty badass, but he can’t be sure with Tucker’s hair in the way. The complicated patterns seem to continue down, creeping beneath the collar of his undersuit and then spidering onward further than that – at least, Wash suspects so. Tucker’s grinning, the right corner of his mouth pulling higher than the other, and Washington notices for the first time that his left incisor is chipped. He thinks to ask him about it, and then thinks _one thing at a time, Wash_. “How far down does it go?”

“You curious? That’s a little gay, man.”

Tucker gets Wash’s best deadpan _are you fucking serious_ look for that, something he’s perfected over the years to come across even through the most impassive of headgear. And when the sim soldier just laughs in response, entirely unfazed, Wash is glad for that anonymous impassiveness, because it means that Tucker can’t see the wry fondness he knows is visible on his face beneath it.

He doesn’t think he’s going to get a straight answer – which wouldn’t be unfair, because okay, it was a pretty invasive question – but then Tucker is reaching up to grab a fistful of his short dreads and sweep them away like a curtain with one one hand and tugging down the collar of the undersuit with the other, exposing the dark skin beneath. “All the way down, right up to my choice ass. Can you say fucking _overkill?_ ”

Wash leans forward to look because he honestly can’t help it. Without the hair in the way he can see the loops and whorls, the grids and knots, the strange and foreign alphabet fit onto the top knob of Tucker’s spine, bleeding down over each vertebrae. He knows some Sangheili shorthand from training, and can hold basic conversations, but this - this is a whole other level, complicated and intimate. The silver ink wraps around the sides of Tucker’s neck but don’t meet in the front; Wash wonders if his torso is the same way, and if that’s why he never noticed it before - Tucker always sleeps on his back. The art is bright and eerie on Tucker’s dark skin. It matches his eyes. In the sun the markings gleam unnaturally, intricate and beautiful and terrible; for the first time Washington registers what Tucker said, is forced against his will to imagine the hiss and bubble as acid seared it’s way down his spine, across the planes of his back.

He says, quietly and around the bitter taste in his mouth, “Must’ve really hurt.”

“Dude, you have no idea. It was pretty touch and go for a while ‘cause they don’t use the good shit on humans, usually, so they didn’t know how I’d react - _not fucking well,_ lemme tell you - but I pulled through like the badass I am. Besides, aliens wouldn’t let me go around with Junior without ‘em, so it had to be done.” A beat, almost short enough to be natural. “Just one of the things that comes with being hero of the universe, I guess. You know how it is – oh wait, except you don’t, because you’re not the prophesized hero of an entire race. Suck it.”

The deflection is tasteless and obvious and not nearly as clever as Washington knows Tucker can be, and he lets it slide without comment. Tucker doesn’t talk much about the Diplomatic Corps. He doesn’t much talk about his months spent alone in a temple with no one but Donut for company, or the time he lunged for Washington’s jugular when he found out just who shot Donut in the first place. He doesn’t talk about the nightmares he wakes from, with an alien language on his tongue, and he definitely doesn’t talk about his son – his bastard, gene-slurry, alien-human-hybrid, messiah-heretic son. Wash wonders where Junior is now. Wonders how Tucker feels that a map of acid scorched into his flesh is what he has to remember him by.

He says, “Epsilon left me with perfect memory.”

Tucker looks at him, one eyebrow climbing impressively up his forehead. “What, like photographic?”

"No. Not like photographic." He goes for the release seal at the underside of his jaw, hesitates, and then continues. The hiss-pop is comforting, and the fresh air is cool on his tongue. He tucks the helmet under his arm and doesn’t look at Tucker. Wets his lips.

"I can’t forget anything. Ever. I remember everything that’s ever happened to me, everything I’ve ever done, every detail, all the time. I go to sleep and I don’t dream anymore, Tucker - I remember. I still remember the way everything looked, smelled, sounded, felt, every single day for years.” Washington has never told anyone this before. His tongue is heavy in his mouth, and he doesn’t want to keep going, but Tucker’s inhuman eyes are on him. “The funny thing is, the nightmares are never the worst - being forced to relive the bad times in exact detail was never what killed me. You know what really killed me, Tucker?”

Tucker doesn’t answer, and Wash is inexpressibly grateful.

“What always killed me was how clearly I remember the good times. When I close my eyes I can see them all, and it’s like they’re still here. I have ghosts in my head, as real as you or me. The hardest part is forcing myself to remember that they’re _gone_ , no matter what tricks my memory tries to pull. My perfect memory.” He spreads his fingers in a vague, all encompassing gesture, and tries not to be bitter. “It was Epsilon’s final gift to me, I guess.”

It’s a long time before Tucker speaks, and Washington is patient. When at last he whispers, “Dude. _Douche_ move,” Wash can answer almost sincerely, “Wasn’t his fault.”

It’s a bitter pill to swallow, especially when he knows Tucker is more than willing to side with him. But he also knows that Tucker feels very personally wounded and betrayed at the moment. He knows he would take any excuse to be pissed at the Epsilon - and he knows that no matter what, Tucker still thinks of Epsilon as _Church_ , and Wash admires that.

"Wasn’t his fault." He says again, and this time he believes his own voice.

He can feel Tucker watching him, can feel his gaze on the side of his face, and he lets him stare. He’s in an okay place right now, he thinks. Not great, maybe not even good, but okay.

“The point, Tucker,” he sighs eventually, “is not that I want revenge on Epsilon for what he did to me. I’m not even angry about it anymore. The point is that I learned to live with it - I’m not the only soldier with war wounds, visible or otherwise. My memory is my scar and I’m not ashamed of it. So you shouldn’t be ashamed of yours. Uh…” Okay, no, he might have been wrong, he’s not sure how okay he is with Tucker watching him for this long, actually. He never shuts up most of the time and now he’s just _staring._ Wash falters, fades, peters off. “We’ve all got scars of war, is what I’m saying. So. You’re not alone. And if you want to talk about it, um. I’m here. Uh.”

"Dude."

"Yeah."

"That was the sappiest, most melodramatic speech _ever_.”

Washington slumps. “Shut up Tucker.”

"No, like, of all time. And I had to live with _Donut_ for months.”

"Shut up, Tucker.”

"Do you rehearse these or are you naturally that poetic?"

"Private, I’m warning you."

"Ooh, big bad Freelancer pulling rank. Don’t worry man, I won’t tell everyone you secretly have feelings."

"I don’t know why I even bother." He raps his knuckles against his forehead and Tucker just snickers.

“So if it’s just like real life can you just remember the last time you banged someone and-”

Wash lunges, knowing Tucker will scramble out of the way before he can make contact. They’ve done this part before, and Washington remembers, he knows how it goes - though, admittedly, they’ve normally got their helmets on. This time his fingertips just catch the back of Tucker’s neck, skidding over the tattoos as the dreads brush his knuckles. It’s only a second of contact before Tucker’s gone, but as he laughs Washington takes the moment to reflect on the ghost of warmth echoing in his fingers, beneath the kevlar.

There’s an explosion from inside the base, and seconds later ashy black smoke starts spilling out. Caboose’s voice carries: “No. Bad water. Stop that.”

They both groan because _of course Caboose_ , but Tucker is grinning, and Wash, without his helmet to protect him, thinks he might be grinning too. As Washington starts to gather the pieces of his armor Tucker wanders back over to scoop up his helmet. He starts to make his way back to base, knotting his hair around a few fingers to tuck it away again, and on some gut impulse Washington calls after him, _“Be proud of your battle scars.”_

Except he calls it in broken Sangheili, the result of a single shitty military crash course, perfectly remembered but never fitting right inside his mouth. It’s humiliating, especially compared to what Tucker must know, but any embarrassment he might feel is chased away by smug triumph at the utter shock on Tucker’s face. 

A moment later the surprise fades beneath a grin. “That was the shittiest Sangheili I have ever fucking heard!” He laughs. “Let a master show you how it’s done.”

His eyes flash, he clears his throat, and he says-

Washington wakes.

“Wash,” Carolina says again - she’s said it three times already. Her features are blurry but Wash doesn’t need his sight to know her. He’s got her bottled up in his memory like all the others, her shorn red hair and bright green eyes and rarely smiling mouth; the scar that splits her left eyebrow and the other scar that tears her lower lip. “Hey. Welcome back.”

He blinks a few times, tries to clear his vision, fails. His brain feels muddy but it’s clearing pretty quickly. He takes stock of the room, the medical equipment, makes note of who stands in front of him and who doesn’t. He’s in a hospital, by the looks of it. The wall to his right is comprised mostly of large rectangular windows, through which he can say a silver sky, clouds backlit and bright. The light is dirty, filtered through the glass; he can taste the dust on his tongue. Some of the windows are cracked, and the walls are pockmarked here and there. Probably Harmonia, then. Probably a little scarred from the battle, but still standing.

His gaze rolls back to Carolina. He tries to say, “Don’t say _“to the land of the living”_ , that’s cheesy as hell,” but he can still feel the aftereffects of morphine numbing his tongue, and he’s pretty sure it comes out more like “dun’zay t’th’land’v th’living, thaz cheezy ’s ‘ell”.

Whether or not he’s actually being coherent, Carolina seems to understand. She says, in the low, easy tone of voice that he remembers means she’s amused, “I wasn’t planning on it.”

She scruffs Washington’s hair, the way York used to; as his vision clears Wash catches the strange twist to her scarred mouth, almost wry, but tinged with something darker. This _does_ ping as odd, but his head hurts too fucking much to pay it any attention. “You’re in the hospital, in Harmonia.” She says, confirming his suspicions. “Congratulations. We’ve won the war.”

She means against Felix and Locus, he’s lucid enough to understand that, at least. Which means that the Feds and Rebels have stopped trying to kill each other. It means, Jesus Christ, that Tucker’s plan _worked_.

He laughs in disbelief, and regrets it immediately. So do his ribs, and his everything else. “Christ, I feel like I lost a wrestling match with a semitruck.”

“Well, you lost a wrestling match with Locus, so you’re not too far off.” The twist becomes something closer to genuine amusement. “Some of the rookies didn’t think you’d make it through the pelican ride. I told them it takes more than a hired gun with a god complex to kill a stubborn idiot like you. Even if he does hit like a semitruck.”

Washington groans. “Ugh. I was doing a good job of not remembering that, thanks.” Untrue, but it’s just a joke, and since Carolina seems to be in a joking mood he doesn’t see the harm in it. But she doesn’t answer him, and when he focuses his gaze on her face-

He knows that look.

"…Who got hurt?"

Carolina doesn’t answer, and Wash’s heart monitor doesn’t speed up but the palms of his hands start to itch because he _knows_ that look, he remembers it, remembers Carolina breaking the news about Connecticut with that look and it haunts him, some nights.

"Carolina." Maybe, _maybe_ his heart monitor ticks faster. “Who got hurt?”

Carolina eyes him warily, and that sits heavy in his gut. “What’s the last thing you remember?”

It’s been a long time since he had to really think about that answer. His memory is a recording device, cataloging everything he sees, hears, feels, and everything that he saw and heard and felt became a little hazy after the first concussion or two against Locus’s fists.

"I remember fighting Locus," he says, and that’s the easy part because after that things get disjointed, "and then I remember waking up in the pelican. There was this rebel trooper," he was the only one in Wash’s line of vision, he’d been too weak to turn his head. The soldier was silhouetted by the light of the sky, it had been hard to see, all that really registered was- "he had these blue-green stripes - teal, turquoise, whatever it’s called - he was crying," he remembers that, through the haze of pain, the sobbing of the young man as he said _Captain, Captain-_ “and then I heard Tucker,” _Stop crying and shut the fuck up, Palomo,_ amused and weary and fond and he remembers it, that voice and those words clearer than anything else, remembers the overwhelming sense of relief because _Tucker’s alive._ He doesn’t tell Carolina that. “…and then I woke up here. Will you tell me what happened now?”

Carolina’s eyes have always been very green, but in the low light they seem to glow, smoldering from within. He watches as something shifts in her: her spine lines up, her heels tap together, the soft fondness in her mouth turns hard and clinical. The look in her eyes is still the same. This is the Carolina that told him Connie turned traitor and that they had a duty to move on. This is the soldier, and Wash assumes that being the soldier makes it easier, somehow.

She tells him.

He doesn’t believe her at first. It doesn’t compute. He wants to ask why Carolina is lying to him. He wants to say stop, just shut up, don’t tell me that, don’t tell me Tucker _died_ for this war, this _fucking_ war that wasn’t even his. He wants to kill Felix. He wants to know how Felix got away - he wants to know how they could _let_ Felix get away. He wants to go back to sleep. He wants to go back to his blissful ignorance, back to admiring Tucker’s plan and being proud and picking the words he would say to him when he saw him next. He wants to leave this hospital, climb through the rubble until he finds the crash site, the canyon, he wants to find that tree with that scar and sit down and close his eyes until Tucker sits with him, takes off his helmet, shows him the constellation of scars on his neck-

What he says is, “Has anyone told his son?”

Carolina blinks. “His - his _son?”_

"Epsilon would know. Where is he? Epsilon, has anyone told Junior?"

"He’s not-" she stops. Shakes her head, minutely. Starts again. "Epsilon’s in a cyborg unit right now. He had some things he needed to take care of. I’ll ask him when I see him."

"Oh. Good. Thanks, I’d appreciate that." He resettles. Stares up at the ceiling that he’s going to remember for the rest of his life. "I just thought his son should know."

Carolina is watching him. “Wash, are you-“

"I’m fine, Boss," he says, and he calls her _boss_ for the first time in a long time, because for the first time in a long time his memory is getting away from him and when he looks up at her he sees her ghost and sees York’s ghost and Connie’s ghost and North’s ghost and Maine’s ghost and he sees Tucker’s ghost-

"Are you sure?"

He snaps back to reality. Old Carolina - Carolina with longer hair and less scars and fewer bags beneath her eyes - Carolina’s _ghost_ wouldn’t ask if he was sure. She would take him at his word and let him deal with it otherwise. This isn’t old Carolina, he realizes, at about the same time that he realizes he’s going to remember this, at about the same time that he thinks - for one wild, desperate instant - that he doesn’t _want_ to remember this. He doesn’t want this to be another moment in his life segmented and filed away in his memory. He doesn’t want to remember the dirty light filtering through the windows and dappling the cream colored walls, the patterns in the old ceiling tiles, the two crossfire bullet holes in the door, the angle of Carolina’s head, subtle, subtle, so fucking _pitying_. It makes him violent with how fiercely he doesn’t want to remember these slow and tortuous seconds as he realizes that Tucker is _dead_. He doesn’t want him to be just another scar, carved into his perfect _fucking_ memory.

"Yeah. I’m sure."

—

The sky is deceptively bright, on Chorus, and Washington doesn’t really understand why he hasn’t noticed until now. It’s a strange kind of sky, a gloomy sort of rolling steel curtain but backlit so brightly by the sun that you forget it’s gray at all, if you’re not paying attention. When he looks back he finds that it’s always been that way, in the background of his memory, bright and silver. The real sunny days were far and few between but he never noticed. He wonders if he’s not asking the wrong questions - instead of why didn’t I notice _before,_ maybe he should be asking why am I noticing _now?_ It’s not like it’s important. It’s barely even worth noting. The only reason he might pay it any mind now is because something has changed, and the only thing he can think of like that is-

He stops wondering. It’s been two days since he first woke up, and despite all the medical bullshit the doctors had been spouting about rest and fractures and concussions and setting bones as though he’s some greenie who hasn’t survived worse with less, Dr. Grey had signed off and he’s finally gotten his armor back. It’s a familiar weight across his shoulders, hugging his chest, encasing his arms and legs. His feet, nestled back into their armored boots, have taken him outside the hospital and onto the streets of Harmonia - once you leave the heart they become winding, twisting things, shifting from narrow to sprawling and dirt to brick with no rhyme or reason, reminding him more of a war-torn nervous system than a war-torn city. It didn’t take long to get hopelessly lost among the crumbling buildings, which he thinks may have been what he was going for in the first place. He doesn’t know why.

He had a trickle of visitors in the two days he was on bedrest - two days too long, he had important things to do, so what if he doesn’t know exactly what they were yet - Sarge, Simmons, Grif, Doyle, Carolina, Caboose. Doyle seemed pleased to see him alive, and had professed how grateful he was for all Washington and his friends had done, how they were _heroes_ , which was… surprisingly hard to swallow, but nothing he couldn’t handle. Carolina kept him informed. She definitely seemed to be functioning the best, after all the losses. She told him about the treaty being written up between the two armies that they were trying to stick to. The capital was being rebuilt. Epsilon was trying to chase down Felix and Locus electronically. No, he hasn’t gotten through to Junior yet, he’s a hard alien to find ( _Sangheili_ , Washington corrects), but if he does Washington will be the first to know.

Caboose had been the hardest. Where the Reds had stood around awkwardly and made gruff, pathetic attempts at conversation (“Uh, good job not dying there, Wash,” “Grif!” “What?” “Don’t say that, it draws attention to Tucker being- oh shit,” “Jesus Christ, Simmons, what the fuck?” and “Uh, so, hey, sorry about Tucker. Now that we brought it up, _Simmons._ ” “Yeah, sorry, man. We’ll all miss him.” “Good soldier. Unfortunate. Good for Red team that you dirty Blues get all the worst damned luck though, huh?” “ _Sarge_ , oh my _god_.”) Caboose had just… curled up on his bed and slept. Washington doesn’t know what he had been expecting, but that hadn’t been it. Tears, maybe. Perhaps a childlike lack of understanding. Maybe even indifference. Instead he got Caboose, still in full armor, clamboring onto his bed without a word and winding deceptively strong arms around his trunk and squeezing, squeezing until it hurt, until Wash could barely breathe. He never stopped him. At one point, Caboose took his helmet off and handed it to Washington, who put it on the floor, but then he resettled and didn’t move again for hours.

No one came to get him that first night, and Washington fell asleep like that, with Caboose’s cold nose pressed against the bottom of his jaw. He dreamt of that one puppy he took care of in between cats when he was a dumb, bleeding-heart kid, the feeling of it’s cold nose on his chin as it licked his face.

When he woke Caboose was gone, but he came again just before noon, again in full armor, and again climbed onto the cot and wound around him like a big blue vine. Again Wash put his helmet on the floor. They only spoke once. Caboose said, “Tucker used to let me do this sometimes. When Church was being not here.”

Washington figured as much. Some nights he would hear the Caboose’s unmistakable footfalls outside the door, and then Tucker, through the walls: _ugh, Caboose, you have your own bunk for a fucking reason, get out!_ When Wash went to wake Tucker in the morning Caboose was never there, but they were consistently the only mornings Tucker happened to be wearing clothes. “I’m not Tucker, Caboose. Tucker’s gone.”

A pause. Caboose curled closer. “I want to stop burying my friends, mister Washington.”

Washington was quiet after that, for a long time, considering. A beat, two, until he was certain he could move without wanting to be sick, or to shoot something with the gun he didn’t have. Then he wove his fingers through Caboose’s hair, slowly, front to back, and again, and again. It was strange, at first, unnatural; he felt like he wasn’t doing it right. It had been a long time since he’d tried to comfort someone like this, but then Caboose made a small sound in the back of his throat - a whimper and a moan and almost a sob, an animal noise of grief and pain. He curled closer still, and Washington focused on the tactile feeling of dark locks slipping through his fingers. It was… soft. Thick, and sort of wild, and everywhere. With patient, methodical movements he worked out the kinks and tangles. Caboose pressed his cold nose to the column of Wash’s throat. His arms were warm; so was his hair. This, Washington decided. This, more than anything else in the past two long, awful days. He wanted to remember this.

“Me too, buddy,” he said, but Caboose was already asleep.

Neither Epsilon or Donut ever came.

Washington walks. He watches the buildings and he watches the strange sky. Carolina didn’t tell him anything about Donut, but then, she didn’t really have to. Wash remembers perfectly well on his own Tucker’s stories of long, dusty days locked in a temple with the pink soldier. She _did_ tell him, almost reluctantly, that Epsilon had been with Tucker in the end. He unjammed the radio tower and got back just in time for the final moments, and hasn’t returned to her neural implant since. And she told him about the memorial service being held for all the soldiers who died in the final battle - it’s probably in full swing by now, about three miles in the opposite direction. It would account for why the streets are so empty, anyway. Glass crunches under his boot and he can’t bring himself to feel bad for skipping out.

He’s just thinking about Caboose and hoping that at least Epsilon is with him when he hears a familiar voice, drifting out from the open doorway of a shelled out apartment complex a handful of buildings down the road. He can’t tell what it’s saying, but it sounds like Epsilon, and it sounds like he’s talking to someone. Washington doesn’t intend to creep up on them - he doesn’t even intend to intrude in the first place, but everyone he can think of that Epsilon could be talking to is at the service and curiosity gets the better of him. He doesn’t intend to freeze just before the doorway and eavesdrop, but then, he never intended to hear that voice again when it says-

“Dude, calm down. You know Sangheili, you’re gonna be fine.”

The world tilts, for a second. It spins and dips and rolls and Washington has to sit down. His chest is tight and his jaw is locked up, and he decides, after a moment, that it is too much fucking effort to unlock it so he just sits there, breathing through his nose, gritting his teeth and focusing on the slow aching throb working it’s way through the roots of his molars.

Epsilon’s voice next, arguing, because of course. “No, I don’t. _You_ knew Sangheili.”

“No, I _know_ Sangheili, and since _I_ know Sangheili, _you_ know Sangheili. You’re a fuckin’ supercomputer, dipshit, of course you know Sangheili. Even if you don’t, can’t you just download it or something?”

He’s not going to just walk in there with his hopes up like a naive fucking idiot. He’s _not_. Tucker’s dead. If Wash thinks about this, he’ll be able to work out why that voice is saying those things and wrecking him, leaving him in the rubble of a foreign city hyperventilating between his knees. He just needs to think, to _focus_ , but it’s a little difficult because they’re still talking.

“God damn it, could you just leave? Please? I can’t concentrate on learning an entire language with you being a smartass over my shoulder.”

“Listen, Church, I know my smokin’ hot body is very distracting, but in case you forgot, I didn’t ask to be here.” Washington’s eyes are closed but he can _see_ Tucker there, crouched beside him, smirking mouth and sharp eyes and silver scars winking in the sun-

“Yeah, well, neither did I. You’re not supposed to be here, you’re dead, I don’t need you inside me too! Wait, shit, I meant in my head-”

“Too late, man, _bow chika bow wow.”_

And Washington can’t. He tries, he really fucking tries, but just, he _can’t_. He rockets to his feet and walks in.

He probably should have expected Epsilon to have super hearing or sensors or something, but he doesn’t, and he ends up surprised by how inhumanly fast Epsilon’s reactions are. The second his foot lands inside the room Epsilon turns, a sharp jerk of the shoulders and head, followed by the rest of the body. The bright blur of color at his shoulder is gone in the next instant, but not before Washington catches the flash of teal, turquoise, seafoam green.

“Washington.” He cocks his hip and tosses his chin up in a gesture of indifference that doesn’t convince. “I’m fine, so you can stow whatever feel-good move-on bullshit speech you have prepared. Why aren’t you at the service?”

“Was that who I thought it was?” He meant to say _I could ask you the same thing_ , but all he can hear is the rushing of blood in his ears, and _bow chicka bow wow_ , and-

Epsilon bristles and goes still, a sudden and violent lack of movement, unnatural and all over. “It’s fine. I’ve got it under control.”

"Epsilon," Washington warns, and immediately wants to kick himself for not calling him Church. "He’s not Tex. You can’t bring him b-"

 _“You don’t think I fucking know that?”_ Epsilon swells, a burst of violet rage, and Washington - Wash doesn’t go for his gun. He stands and watches as Epsilon heaves, and curses, as his breath starts to crackle and his voice starts to break, and he doesn’t point out that he’s an AI that doesn’t actually need to breathe at all, and he _doesn’t_ remember Epsilon shredding himself and Washington’s mind to tatters, and he _doesn’t go for his gun_. He doesn’t go for his gun, and Epsilon keeps shouting.

"Do you think it’s fucking easy to live in someone’s head? Do you think it’s easy to be in there when they fucking _die_ , and _not_ take some piece of them with you? Do you think it’s easy not to _want_ to?”

Washington also doesn’t comment on that bit of poetic irony. Instead he says, “He died doing what was right. The only reason we’re alive is because of him.” and the words feel like paper in his mouth, weak and rote learnt. Epsilon flares, his voice splitting two tonal, a deep echo emphasizing his words.

“Yeah, and the only reason he’s _dead_ is because of _us!”_

"He wouldn’t want you to blame yourself. He respected you. Cared about you."

Epsilon laughs, and the sound is bitter and harsh. “You don’t think I already _know_ that? I was in his head, fucknuts, pay attention! Do you think that makes it any better? News flash, it doesn’t, it makes it _worse!_ Here, I’ll prove it: he _respected and cared_ about you too, asshole! Now tell me, do you blame yourself _more_ or _less?_ ”

For a second all of Washington’s muscles seize. “I don’t blame myself. It was no one’s fault but Felix.”

Epsilon _snarls._ “Don’t you pull that shit with me, Washington. I was in your head, too.”

That provokes violent, aborted reaction: Washington steps forward, a rocking sort of lunge, elbows and knees bent, fists ready, magnum a heavy weight on his hip, but it goes nowhere. He _forces_ it to go nowhere. He doesn’t go for his gun. Epsilon watches him, body loose in a way that suggests he’s waiting for the attack. Well, he won’t get it - after a long moment, Washington forces himself to straighten up, drop back. His hands fall limp to his sides, and he feels, suddenly and inexplicably, very, very tired.

“Did you tell Junior?”

One thing that hasn’t changed about Church, in all the time Wash has known him, whether Alpha or Epsilon, is his body language. He telegraphs everything - his aggressive stillness, his eagerness for a fight, his guilt and his fury and his pain. Now Wash reads the jerk of Church’s chin, so fast and sharp he knows any living person would be feeling the sting. It says that no one else has even mentioned Junior, no one else has even thought to ask.

“Of course I told him,” he mutters, “I got through an hour ago. He’ll be here by tomorrow. Don’t be a fucking idiot.”

That comes as a surprising relief. Junior knows. Okay. Good. At least Junior knows. At least Tucker’s son knows.

Wash’s eyes burn with weariness and he wants nothing more than to sit down with all the ghosts suddenly swimming before his eyes, just to sit down and sleep and remember. Instead he picks up his head, and asks, “…You don’t know Sangheili?”

A flicker of teal, gone before he can blink. “No.”

“I do.” Epsilon stares, and doesn’t say _I remember_. Wash is grateful. “Basic, anyway. I’ll teach you.”

He does. Despite being an ass about it, Church learns quickly; Washington suspects being a super computer has something to do with it, not to mention the brief flickers of Delta that appear at his shoulder every now and then to keep him on track. He doesn’t ask if Washington ever talked to Tucker in Sangheili. Wash is grateful for that, too.


	2. Chapter 2

Washington doesn’t get back to the hospital until the gray sky is bleeding pink with weak morning light. He thinks of Epsilon, still in that crumbling building, working his way around basic Sangheili phrases that Washington could never pronounce properly.

“I think I’m gonna stay here a little longer,” he had said as Wash stood to leave. He wasn’t looking at him. “Practice some more. I’ll catch up with you later.”

Washington had thought to call him out on it. He thought to insist that he come back with him _now_ \- though Carolina never said it, she radiated concern whenever Epsilon came up in conversation. He thought to say, “You better be there when Junior lands” and he thought to say “if you’re not, I’ll kill you”, but he didn’t. All he said, in the end, was: “Sure. See you later, Church.”

If nothing else, Wash thinks, he is proud that he didn’t call him Epsilon.

Washington pulls up his mental image of the hospital and begins to navigate. Though it’s serving as their current base of operations, there’s not enough space in the hospital to give any real rooms to anyone but the injured. As such, the Reds and Blues have been using a modified rec room, filled with borrowed couches and arm chairs. Washington is looking forward to one of those couches now that he’s been discharged. All he wants to do is sleep.

A soft sob breaks him from his thoughts and he freezes. The hallway he’s in now is mostly rubble, hollowed out and abandoned after a stray shell. It’s the most direct route back to the room and, to be honest, he was sort of betting on it being empty - the last thing he wants is another confrontation. He supposes that whoever is sobbing - because they are, they _are_ sobbing - was thinking the same thing.

A voice in his head tells him that he needs to stop creeping up on people like this, but he forgets it as he peeks in the doorway. The room, half destroyed, has been stripped of anything useful by doctors with too many patients. There’s a soldier sitting there, where the bed should be, in fatigues that look too tight. He’s got a blonde mohawk that Washington can only describe as fluffy and scars mapping the right side of his face. Washington knows the pattern of scars like that - plasma grenade, lucky to be alive. He’s curled in on himself, eyes screwed shut, gasping softly for breath. His knuckles are pressed to his lips to muffle the cries. Washington knows those patterns, too, and even as he tries to find the right way to approach him he hears _no, like, of all time, and I had to live with_ Donut _for months_ -

Later.

Later, just… not now.

It takes every ounce of control in his body not to run the rest of the way back to the rec room. Sneaking past Donut isn’t hard; he’s not Epsilon, and Washington suspects some damage to that right ear anyway. The Reds are still sleeping when he gets there, sprawled out in varying positions on varying furniture. Lopez leans against the far wall, apparently in stasis. Neither Carolina or Caboose are present, and there are no words to express how grateful Wash is for that.

He lays down on an empty couch without taking off his armor. He stares at the ceiling and wages war on the memories threatening to drown him. He doesn’t sleep.

An hour later Carolina is standing in the doorway. Caboose is hovering at her shoulder, head tilted.

“Epsilon told me that Junior’s on his way. He’s going to meet us there. Let’s go.”

Washington nods, and if either of them find it strange that he was lying there in full battle armor, they don’t say it. Carolina sets to waking the Reds while Caboose clings to Washington’s arm.

“You talked to Church, right, Agent Washington? Is he okay? Will he come back soon?” Wash can feel Caboose’s big doe eyes on him through the visor, and he thinks of Epsilon and teal hololight. “Yeah, Caboose, we’ll see him soon. He’s going to meet Junior with us. Church is fine.”

Caboose nods glumly, and Washington can’t tell if he knows that he’s lying.

Simmons is dispatched to pick up Donut, who returns to the group in his pink armor once again. With his helmet on Washington can’t tell if his eyes are still red-rimmed, but his shoulders slump as though he’s trying to make himself smaller, and Red team… they sort of gravitate around him, seemingly without noticing it themselves. Grif and Simmons talk in low voices with distinct tones of sarcasm and exasperation, drifting to Donut’s right. Sarge is holding an utterly one-sided conversation with Lopez, both on Donut’s other side. As Washington watches, a loose circle takes shape around the pink soldier, made up of varying shades of red. Wash continues to watch them until Sarge snaps, “What’re you lookin’ at, Blue?” and then he turns away, stepping closer to Caboose. Obligingly Caboose links an arm with him, and clutches Freckles closer to his chest with the other.

They pick up Doyle and Kimball as they make their way to the landing strip, and a few other soldiers for security - lieutenants of Kimball’s. Washington recognizes the one with the teal stripes. As the others talk quietly amongst themselves, occasionally branching out to their respective captains - color coded, Wash notes, the blue to Caboose and the orange to Grif and the maroon to Simmons - Tucker’s lieutenant says nothing, head hung and movements lethargic. On impulse he says, “Lieutenant.” and the soldier looks up. “What’s your name?”

“…Palomo, sir,” he says, quiet, and Christ, he’s just a kid. Palomo says nothing else, just watches him, and- shit. Wash is supposed to say something now, isn’t he? He really didn’t think this though. All he can think to say is _I saw you crying before Tucker died,_ but he manages to catch the words just before they come out of his mouth and says instead, “…You had a good captain, Lieutenant Palomo.”

Palomo stares, and Washington imagines what his face must look like under the helmet. The image twists something in his chest, painfully, and when Palomo murmurs, “Yeah, sir. I really did.” that something twists tighter.

The rest of the trip is silent, after that. The other lieutenants orbit around Palomo, clustering close in a way not dissimilar to Red team, and Washington feels that, somehow, he couldn’t have said anything worse.

At the landing strip, Epsilon is waiting for them. Washington tries not to be surprised by that but he is; he had expected him to be late, still wrestling his own mirror images, if he showed up at all. But there he is. He’s standing perfectly, unsettlingly still again, watching the skies in his matte black armor, and Wash thinks of some great sentinel, vigilant and watchful. It’s hard to reconcile with his ingrained image of blustery, blue Church.

He doesn’t turn when Carolina comes up beside him, or the Reds, or Wash himself. When he tells them that Junior will be bringing friends, his helmet doesn’t even twitch. The first time he moves at all is when Caboose peels from Washington’s side to latch onto his; the blue soldier tilts his head down and taps their helmets together, almost silent. “Hi, Church. I missed you.”

And Epsilon’s shoulders lose a hint of their rigidity. The lines of him, stiff and inhuman, melt, just a little - Suddenly he’s Church again. “Hey, buddy. I missed you too.”

They wait. Washington replays the soft tapping of their helmets in his head, and compares it to the tap of his and Tucker’s shoulders.

—

Junior lands on Chorus around the same time that Epsilon catches up with Felix and Locus. Wash knows it because they’re watching his ship circle overhead when Epsilon shudders, the holo-light within his armor flickering green, and before anyone can ask he says, “Well, it looks like we have our culprit.”

“Delta finish decrypting the manifest?” Carolina’s helmet is on, but Washington has known her long enough to know the expression that goes with the wry tone.

“Uh, excuse you, _I_ finished decrypting the manifest. You’re welcome.” The holo-light flickers again. “Ugh, fine, yes, _Delta_ finished decrypting the manifest. Now can you shut up while I process it?”

“Say that again, I dare you.” Carolina crosses her arms and Epsilon distinctly does not say it again as he processes. Wash’s eyes remain rooted to the ship, bizarre and alien, all smooth, rounded lines where all the military history carved into his memory tell him there should be hard angles. There’s an old violence that stirs in his gut, memories of war and plasma and similar ships with guns pointed his way. Then there are memories of Tucker, talking about his son with pride in his inhuman eyes, and the violence quiets.

“Oh shit.” says Epsilon behind him. “Does anyone know the name Charon Industries? Big umbrella corporation, hand in pretty much everything, mainly weapons,”

Washington’s mouth goes dry. The ship lands smoothly but he doesn’t see it; he’s too busy watching a ship emerge from the waste of space, slow and heavy and threatening, _Staff of Charon_ emblazoned across the side as clear as day-

“It sounds familiar,” says Carolina, “But I don’t-”

“I know them. The resistance, right?” Wash stares at his reflection in Epsilon’s visor because it’s the only thing keeping him in the present. Behind his eyes that ship is still pushing through the scrap yard as they rocket back to 479er, his stomach a rolling knot of remembered panic and realization, _it’s a trap, we’ve been tricked, it’s a trap._ Carolina steps forward. “What? I thought they were UNSC splinter groups,”

Epsilon doesn’t take his gaze from Washington. “The _soldiers_ were all UNSC. But according to my records, they were hired on as Charon’s private security force.”

“Is that _legal?”_

“I doubt it. Charon and the military are real buddy buddy, which brings me to big dramatic reveal number two…” He fades off, and Washington stares down his own reflection. “What is it?”

“You’re not gonna like it.”

He’s still watching Washington, only Washington, and Wash squares his shoulders even as bile rises bitter in the back of his throat. “What is it, Epsilon?”

Afterward, Wash wishes he would stop asking people that, because maybe then people would stop telling him.

“Hargrove.” Carolina repeats, flatly. “As in, Malcolm Hargrove, head of the UNSC oversight committee?”

“As in Malcolm Hargrove, the guy who condemned the Director?” says Simmons.

“As in Malcolm Hargrove, the dude we shook hands with when they took that picture for the article?” says Grif.

“As in Malcorn Hamgravy, the guy we are talking about that I definitely know the name and face of?” says Caboose.

As in Malcolm Hargrove, the man who pardoned me? Washington doesn’t say. As in the man I trusted, the man I betrayed you all for? The man I shot Lopez and Donut for? Tucker is dead because of _that_ Malcolm Hargrove?

 _“Puto,”_ says Lopez, and Washington is pretty sure he speaks for everyone.

Sarge starts growling about no good backstabbing dirtbags, but Epsilon is speaking over him. “Where’s Grey? The psycho doctor, where is she?”

“She’s… treating the space pirates we captured.” Carolina says _treating_ like she wants to say _interrogating,_ or maybe _torturing._ “Why?”

“I just figured out how to catch our mercs. I’ve got a call to make.” He turns to leave, aggressive determination set into the coil of his limbs, the way he charges forward, the tilt of his chin. Washington wants to stop him, wants to say it can wait until after Junior, but he’s still thinking of Malcolm Hargrove and the _Staff of Charon_ and the sight of Epsilon’s back throws him back to Agent Texas so violently he can barely breathe, much less reach out to stop him.

As it turns out, he doesn’t have to. Caboose catches Epsilon’s inner elbow, the force of his forward motion jerking them both.

“Yeah. Church?” he says, voice high and considering, “I was thinking that maybe you should be here for Junior.”

Epsilon whirls on him with animal hostility. Washington isn’t sure if he imagines the flash of violet. “What the hell, Caboose? In case I wasn’t clear, I have the chance to nail the fuckers who killed Tucker. I think that’s a little more important than playing goddamn welcoming committee.”

Caboose’s voice is quiet and firm. “You should be here for Junior, Church.”

There’s a heartbeat of silence when Wash really thinks Epsilon is going to attack Caboose - his shoulders hitch and his knees bend and his fingers twitch, and Washington, he’s too lost in memory to stop it. In his peripheral he sees Carolina shift to intervene, but then, inch by inch, the anger bleeds from Epsilon’s frame, and the hololight - definitely violet - flickers and goes out.

“Fine,” he spits, and this time when he yanks his arm Caboose lets go. “Doyle. Grey is one of yours, right?”

Doyle, who has been swaying on his feet for the past ten minutes, perks up minutely. “Oh, er, yes, she is indeed under my command. One of the brightest, if I may-”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever. Go back and tell her to compile all known radio frequencies used by the mercenaries and give them to me when she’s done.”

“You mean leave the Elites to you? Oh, I couldn’t possibly,” He doesn’t wait for a response. “Well, if you insist! Good luck, all!”

He hurries off. They watch him go in silence.

“What a weenie,” says Donut, and a murmur of agreement ripples through the small crowd.

“Uh, sirs?” Attention shifts to one of the lieutenants - the maroon one, Simmons’s. She’s pointing to the landing strip. The ship is successfully grounded, and the bay doors are opening. Washington tries to shake himself back to the present, fails - tries again - tries to brace himself-

A squad of six Elites exit the ship, each in full battle armor, each over four hundred pounds besides, and each shooting past seven feet. Washington doesn’t see five of them. Leading the group is a Sangheili Battlemaster with teal armor, and in the gray light it gleams.

 _“I’m fucking aqua!”_ Washington hears as he watches Junior approach, and he thinks of _Staff of Charon_ and Malcolm Hargrove and shooting Donut and Tucker dying in the pelican and - no. Not here, not now. This is Junior, this is Tucker’s son. Washington has to be _here_ for this. He can put off whatever impending mental breakdown he’s on the brink of for just a short while longer. It wouldn’t be the first time.

Epsilon is the first to step forward, and the others follow with varying degrees of reservation. They meet the Sangheilis halfway, and Washington is surprised to find that Junior is the smallest among them, roughly seven feet while one or two of the others must reach eight or even nine. Then again, Tucker was the shortest of all of them, and maybe - Washington wants, for one hysterical instant, to laugh at the idea - maybe it’s genetic.

Epsilon clears his throat, and fumbles through the formal greeting and welcome that he and Washington worked on the night before. The Sangheilis look amongst themselves and make strange low coughing sounds, Junior included, who shakes his long, oblong head and then he-

Oh. Wash wasn’t expecting that either.

Junior doubles up and scoops Epsilon into a crushing hug, lifting him off the ground and dwarfing him against his broad chest. He nuzzles him fiercely, and Epsilon says in a strained voice, _“Yeah, yeah, long time no see, now put me down, this is fucking embarrassing.”_ (Wash is unsure whether or not he regrets teaching Epsilon the Sangheili swears that Tucker taught him.) Junior obliges and says, in a tone that Washington would swear is fond, _“It is good to see you again, Uncle Church.”_

Wash could swear he sees Epsilon’s edges soften. _“Yeah, it’s good to see you too, kid.”_ A beat, and then Epsilon groans. _“Uncle? Ugh, I told Tucker to make you quit calling me that.”_

Something twists in Junior’s reptilian face, the corners of his mandibles pulling up, and it takes Wash a second to realize that it’s a smile. “We both agreed that it was funnier to-” a phrase Wash doesn’t know, but his best guess would be “piss you off.” Judging by the coughing noises from the rest of the Sangheili troupe that he is beginning to suspect is laughter, he’s fairly confident in his translation.

He realizes Epsilon is looking at him at the same time that he realizes he’s laughing too. Well. Chuckling. Well, scoffing, more like, an amused sort of exhale, but it’s close enough to get his attention, and then a hand on his shoulder. _“Junior, this is Washington. I told you about him.”_

Junior looks at Washington with eyes that he knows, dino eyes and Tucker eyes, and suddenly he remembers that he hasn’t been this close to a Sangheili since the desert with the Meta and Doc, and the front lines before that, and both times he ended up with indigo blood smeared over his armor. Old feelings are waking and warring, layers upon layers of gut-hate and fondness and _kill it before it kills you_ and _Tucker’s eyes are always surprising but not bad, necessarily, not bad at all._ The image that he settles on is Tucker because they are, in fact, _Tucker’s_ eyes - there’s the same intelligence, and the same flash, and the same crinkle at the corners as he appraises Washington critically - not just some random Elite.

Then the Sangheili warrior says, “Hey. I’m Junior. Heard you were friends with my dad.” He holds out a fist. “’Sup?”

In retrospect, standing and gaping is not the best way to handle the situation, even with his helmet on. Washington stands and stares even though he supposes that he really should have guessed Junior spoke English before hand; Tucker raised him, and if Epsilon didn’t speak Sangheili until Wash helped him out then what other language could he possibly have used to hail him?

“Uh.” The fist wavers but doesn’t drop. “Is this one broken?”

Carolina elbows him. When he continues to gape and say absolutely nothing, Carolina elbows him harder.

“Ow. Uh, right. Sorry, I was just… surprised. I’m Agent Washington. I’ve heard a lot about you, Junior.” He taps his fist to the larger alien one. “It’s great to finally meet you. I wish it were under better circumstances.”

Junior’s eyes flash. “I do too.”

Wash opens his mouth to say more but closes it again just as fast. The words feel hollow. He wants to tell him that he has his father’s eyes, that it was obvious from the tone of Tucker’s voice how much he loved him, that if he could go back and take Tucker’s place he would but he can’t and it’s killing him slowly. He wants to tell him that he sees his father’s ghost, everywhere, all the time, but he can’t find the words.

“Agent Washington.” Junior is watching him. Something shifts in his expression, minutely, but Wash doesn’t know enough about Sangheilis to read it. “How do you feel about Uncle Wash?”

The tension breaks. Washington can feel his expression go flat. “Please don’t.”

“Uncle Wash it is.” Junior laughs outright when Washington drops his face in his hands, and if Washington keeps his face there in the dark for a second or two longer than necessary because for all the alien scratch and gravel in Junior’s voice he _still laughs like Tucker_ and maybe, if he just keeps his eyes closed, _maybe_ …

Well. No one has to know.

When he opens his eyes again Junior is embracing Caboose, lifting him off the ground. They’re both laughing, nuzzling each other, and behind them the other Sangheilis are making that strange coughing sound again, almost as if _holy shit they’re laughing too._ There’s almost an international incident when Caboose hefts his rifle up to introduce Junior to Freckles, but it is narrowly avoided, and Junior moves to Donut, who has taken off his helmet. He barks something - a casual rendition of a formal greeting, Wash’s brain translates sloppily - and then Donut opens his mouth to respond and honks.

Washington stares. Donut does not stop honking. Some clicks and guttural growls get thrown in. Junior laughs and starts honking and clicking and growling back. No one else bats a fucking eye.

Washington means to say _what the fuck,_ but what comes out is, “You speak Sangheili?”

Donut looks at him like he’s crazy. It’s a new take on an old expression: the last person who looked at him like that was Tucker, and in comparison the angles of Donut’s face are softer. There’s a good-humored tilt to one corner of his mouth.

“Well, _duh._ That’s why they sent me to the Diplomatic Corps with Tucker.” Wash thinks he sees that half-smile wilt, a little, but Donut presses on valiantly. “It’s even better than my Spanish. Some people say Sangheili kind of a gross language, all glottal and muddy sounding and stuff, but if that’s the case, I’m fluent in dirty talk!”

The entirety of Red Team gives a collective groan, and Junior says, _“Bow chika honk honk.”_ Epsilon shakes his head and huffs a laugh, Caboose nods as though this makes complete sense, and Washington - Washington stares. He’s been doing a lot of that lately. He keeps staring as Epsilon introduces the rest of the group (professional Carolina and Kimball and the jumpy, never-seen-a-dino-before lieutenants) and Junior returns the favor (Thompson, Wilson, Williams, Jones, and Jones) and he doesn’t realize he hasn’t blinked at all until his eyes start to burn.

 _Be here,_ he reminds himself, even as Tucker smirks and laughs and leers beside him. He blinks rapidly. _Be here._

“We should get going,” Epsilon is saying, “There’s a lot of shit to catch you up on. Ah, but before we do - here,” he reaches for a weapon mag-clamped to his hip and- oh. Wash hadn’t even noticed. “Some shitheads tried to put it through weapons processing. I managed to grab it first.”

He should have expected the sword. He _really_ should have expected the goddamn sword. He should have, but he didn’t, and the sight of it, sitting there in Epsilon’s hand, dead… it makes something deep inside his chest ache.

Junior stares at the sword too, for a long moment. No one speaks as he reaches for it with one long, scaly hand, and wrapped in his alien fingers, it look right there. Something in Washington’s brain tells him it’s because it was designed for his species in the first place, but something else remembers the natural fold of Tucker’s fingers around the handle, the way the muscles in his arm coiled and uncoiled as he swung, the way Junior swings it exactly the same way. For a split second nothing happens, and then the sword crackles to life, a jet of steaming blue energy; Wash didn’t realize he was holding his breath until it sighs out of him.

Junior doesn’t take his eyes from the sword as he speaks, slowly, in Sangheili. _“As my father’s son, this sword is my birthright. Now that he is gone…”_ He trails off, and Wash sees a slight tremor in the long leathery column of his throat. The ache in his chest grows stronger, more insistent. “...You were right to save it, Uncle Church. Thank you.” His voice goes dark. He says, “I will enjoy impaling my dad’s killer with it,” and Washington hears, _So you would say you have overwhelming feelings of anger and a need for revenge?_

“Count on it,” says Epsilon, and Wash hears, _More than you know._

"We should go." Carolina, breaking the moment and bringing them back to reality - bringing Wash back to reality. Keeping them on track. He’s grateful for that. They came in armored jeeps and in armored jeeps they go; Chorus still doesn’t have the best equipment to spare, so it’s a little cramped and more than a little undignified. Washington is in a jeep with Junior, Epsilon, Caboose and one of the two Jones’, and if nothing else else he will admit that the silence is really goddamn awkward.

"You have new armor, uncle Church." Junior says once the engine starts up, and Epsilon cringes. "You were bluer the last time I saw you."

"Uh, yeah. About that. That’s actually one of the things I needed to catch you up on…" He takes a breath. "I’m an AI."

The jeep starts moving. Junior waits, and when no more information seems to be forthcoming, he tilts his head.

"Is that it? I already knew that."

He blinks at Epsilon’s squawking _What?!_ which - yeah, that pretty accurately sums it up.

"Well, yeah. Dad and I both knew. When I said new armor I meant new body. I thought it was obvious.” He glances between Washington and Caboose. “Did you guys _not_ know?”

Caboose shakes his head and explains, gently, “Uh, I’m sorry, but you are wrong, Junior. Church was a ghost, which wasn’t my fault, then he became a computer, and then an eyeball, and then a computer again. That is what happened.”

Washington sighs. “I knew, but to be fair, I’ve dealt with AIs before. These guys haven’t. Or, they didn’t know they had.”

"Huh. I really thought it was obvious."

“Oh, it was. Don’t get me wrong, their idiocy should never be underestimated.”

Epsilon swears and Junior laughs, and for a second the atmosphere is genuine. When it dissipates so do any attempts at conversation, and for a time the awkward silence returns. Junior traces the grooves of the energy sword’s handle with his thumb.

“My dad, did he…” He stops. Jones says something in a Sangheili dialect that Washington can’t translate, but he understands it when Junior says _“It’s fine.”_ Then, sounding frustrated, “What I mean is - did he - I mean-”

“Tucker was a really good friend,” Says Caboose. “Yeah. We had some friends in trouble, and he did not let them die. That’s what good friends do. Like Church. Tucker was a really good friend.”

Junior stares, and so does Washington. Caboose is watching his hands. “Thanks, uncle Caboose,” Junior murmurs. “I’m glad to hear that.”

“He died a hero.” Epsilon is still looking at Junior. He isn’t breathing, not even for show. His black armor eats the weak light around him. “And he died because we didn’t save him.”

Then, for some reason Washington will never know, Junior looks at him. He tries to agree with Epsilon, Tucker was a hero, but the words don’t come out. He tries to disagree with Epsilon, it wasn’t their fault, but those words don’t come either. All he can manage, quietly, is-

“Tucker was a better man than I’ll ever be.”

Junior’s gaze is unreadable. Washington doesn’t know if those were the right words, but they were the best he could do. He hopes it’s enough.

The rest of the ride goes by with Epsilon catching Junior up as he’d promised. He goes over Freelancer, the bits Junior didn’t already know. The crash, the civil war. The mercenaries and Charon, and his plan to pin them down. Occasionally Caboose puts in a few words. Washington does not.

Once, Junior says, “I want to see him.”

And Epsilon says, “Of course.”

Then they go back to Felix and Locus, and Washington closes his eyes, and thinks of canyons and scars to stop himself from thinking of Charon and Hargrove and a hazy, dying voice in a pelican.

—

These are the things Washington was prepared for: a grave, neat and somber or overflowing with candles and flowers. A quiet, respectful place by itself, or one square among countless other revered dead of war. He was prepared for gut clenching anger - this wasn’t Tucker’s home, this wouldn’t be where he wanted his final resting place. He was prepared for grief. He was prepared for pain and guilt and regret and acceptance. He was prepared for Tucker’s grave. He was prepared to file away another memory - not ready, probably never ready, but prepared.

This is what Washington gets: a military casket on a raised pedestal in a small private room, decorated with medals and pins, with Tucker’s body inside, and he _wasn’t fucking prepared for this._

“You didn’t bury him with the others?” it comes out quiet, less from respect and more from a lack of air. He’s having trouble breathing; maybe the filters in his suit are on the fritz.

Kimball gets the wrong impression. “We did honor him at the memorial, believe me. He was a hero, and our entire planet is in debt to him. I made sure they knew that.” Her voice softens. “But I thought he might like it better to have a small service. With his friends, and his son.”

Junior stares at the casket for what feels like a long, long time. When he moves, it isn’t to open the lid, not right away. First he runs a hand over the surface - gentle, gentle, more tender than Washington would have thought possible. He murmurs something, too soft to hear, and then he leans down and presses the teal shelling of his head to the dark surface. For the first time Washington sees him for what he is: a kid. A kid that lost his father.

Then, with a gentleness that belies his size and his scars, Junior reaches over and opens the lid-

Washington walks away. He doesn’t run, he doesn’t scream, he just - he turns and walks. No one calls after him but he feels their eyes. Epsilon and Caboose and Carolina and the Reds and the Sangheilis and York and North and South and Connie and Maine and Tucker (always Tucker, his bright inhuman gaze scorching the back of his neck) and he looks away from all of them. He goes. He doesn’t know where. Just go. Go. Go.

He keeps walking until he leaves the eyes behind. He’s not sure where he is anymore, wasn’t paying attention, was staring at his feet, one step, another, another, gogogo. Once he can’t feel their weight crushing his spine he looks up, and he thinks he’s in the hospital. A rational little part of his head knows he’s in the hospital, in that abandoned room in that blown out hallway, but in this light, with the bareness of the room, all he can think of is prison. He fumbles off his helmet and it takes longer than it should; his hands are shaking. Deep breath. Breathe. Breathe. Remember where you are. Be here. Prison - no. Don’t do this. He’s at the hospital, not the prison. The _hospital._

He sits down in the middle of the room and whispers “hospital, hospital, hospital” to himself until the word loses meaning. It’s still too hard to breathe, so he starts to peel his armor. Gauntlets, both arms, shoulders. Stop there. Breathe. Hospital, hospital, hospital.

This room really is very similar to the ones in his memories; in prison the rooms were sparse like this. Empty and shadowed and cold. No sound, no people, nothing to distract him from his memory for hours and hours. He lost time, in prison, hours, days, weeks, to the endless void of his memory. It ate at him. In prison his memory _devoured_ him, and in prison he let it - by the time he made the deal with Hargrove, there wasn’t any Washington left to protest. He made the deal and he helped him and now Tucker’s dead. Tucker is dead and Washington helped his killer. He deserves to rot in prison, he knows that. Epsilon was right - he was always right. Tucker’s blood is on his hands. Maybe if he wastes away here then he’ll never make the deal with Hargrove and Tucker won’t have to die. He closes his eyes, brushes his gloved fingers across the back of his neck, remembers the sun-warmth of scarred brown skin. He hopes no one remembers him.

His guard enters the room with light footsteps and Washington’s eyes snap open. The idiot’s out of armor, good, maybe Wash will be able to barrel through him to Hargrove so he can kill the son of a bitch before he kills Tucker-

There’s a soldier there, standing in the doorway. Fluffy blonde mohawk. Fatigues that are too tight.

“Are you okay?” Donut asks, and Washington hears him say that just as clearly as he hears him say, _hey, Simmons, I think he just shot me too-_

He looks away. “I’m fine.”

“Yeah, sure. I’m fine too.” Donut sits down next to him, knees pulled up to his chest in the middle of the floor of an abandoned room in a shelled out corridor in a hospital in Harmonia. Chorus, not the prison. Washington notes Donut’s utter lack of hesitation. “But are you _okay?”_

“I,” He stops. Looks at him. The scars on Donut’s face are a knotted maze of pink and white. His eyes are blue, and yes, they are still rimmed in red. This isn’t the first conversation he’s had with Donut since that first time on Valhalla, but circumstances had been different every time before now, there had never been a chance, and they had never been alone. Looking at Donut now, his scars and his earnest blue eyes, he wants to say, _I shot you. Don’t you hate me? I hate me._ And he wants to say, _Tucker is dead because of me. If you knew that, would you hate me then?_

“No. I’m not okay,” he says, and he means it.

And Donut - Donut laughs. It’s an aching, honest sound.

“Yeah, me neither,” He jostles Washington’s shoulder gently. “At least we can be not okay together, huh? Wanna talk about it?”

_That was the sappiest, most melodramatic speech ever-_

Washington talks, if only to drown out the ghosts in his head.

He tells Donut about his perfect memory, and how he can’t sleep anymore without remembering and how he can’t be awake anymore without remembering, and he tells him how he never told this to anyone but Tucker, and he tells him that him that if he tells anyone he’ll have to kill him. Donut just listens and nods. He tells Donut about Maine, and Connie, and exactly how it felt to set those charges to York and North, and exactly how it felt to pull that trigger on South. Donut nods and doesn’t ask who any of them are. He tells Donut about the potential he saw in Tucker, and how badly he just wanted to help him, and how proud he was when he was actually trying, and how relieved he was when he heard him on that pelican, weary but alive, because at least he was _alive._ He tells him about those few murderous moments when he found out he wasn’t. He tells him how unfair it is that Tucker died for this war, how fucking _unfair_ that he and his son are on the same planet for the first time in years and he isn’t even alive to see him. And he tells him-

“Tucker’s dead because of me.” There. It’s out, a little burst of sound, a shot to the heart, a knife in the stomach, bleeding out slowly, with an AI in your head.

“That’s not true,” Donut says immediately, and Washington laughs, more than a little hysterical. There are ghosts beating the inside of his skull; he gnashes his teeth, he wants to claw them out.

“The fuck it’s not. Epsilon” Church, _Church_ “was right. I’m the one who told him to try, he learned from me, I’m the one who told him-” _You learn from it and you try again oh my god it’s like you people are on fucking loop_ \- no, shut up - _what in the hell makes you think I’m going to ask for it_ \- stop it, shut up, shut _up_ \- “And Hargrove. Hargrove caused all of this, and I worked for him. I trusted him. I _helped_ him.”

“I don’t think I’d go that far.”

“I _shot you_ on his orders.”

To Washington’s surprise, Donut doesn’t even flinch. In fact, he leans forward, brows drawn with determination. The scars on his face pull taut. “You were a different guy back then, and no one blames you for the shit that went down. Not me _or_ Lopez. Besides, you were trying to get out of jail, right? That doesn’t sound like trust to me, that sounds like doing what you needed to do. And in the end, on Sidewinder, you helped out my friends and you chose Tucker and Caboose over Hargrove. You didn’t help him, and if you say that again, I’ll hit you.”

Washington turns to face him fully. Looks him dead in the eye.

 _“I helped him,_ and now Tucker’s _dead.”_

Donut punches him.

Washington has been punched by many, many people in his life. Some he would like to think about less than others. His perfect memory makes it easy to compare and contrast the rattle of his teeth in his gums this time to all others before it, and he can safely assess that few besides Maine have ever knocked his brain around his skull quite like that. Laying there on the floor as the stars clear from his eyes and a steady throb starts in his cheekbone, Wash tries to find the anger and the self-loathing and the endless voices that had been tearing his skull apart moments before, but he can’t. All he can think, coherently, is: _that is one hell of an arm._

“I _told_ you I’d hit you,” Donut leans over him, glaring down - Washington wasn’t aware Donut knew _how_ to glare, at least not effectively. A memory starts to awaken, Tucker going for his throat, but then Donut’s voice chases it off again. “Now you’re going to listen to me, Mister Bad Attitude. Tucker died because an asshole named Felix stabbed him. He died doing the right thing, and being a good man. You didn’t help Hargrove, and you. Didn’t. Kill. _Tucker.”_

He puts his hands on his hips.

“And if you say you did one more time, I’m just going to have to take the truth and pound it into you!”

Washington can’t help it. He laughs.

And laughs.

And keeps laughing.

“…Uh, Wash?” Donut blinks down at him, looking a mixture of surprised and concerned. “Wash?”

Washington can’t answer. He’s clutching at his stomach, rolling on the floor, laughing until his sides hurt, laughing until tears come to his eyes. He laughs until he’s breathless and coughing and Donut kneels down to thump him on the back. “Uh, should I call someone? Are you choking? Oh! I know the Heimlich-”

“No, no, I’m fine,” he chokes on another bout of giggles, and then gasps, “No, I’m good. Really. I just - man. I guess I deserved that. You’ve got some arm.”

Donut’s shoulders sag a little with relief. “I pitched little league back home.”

“Yeah?”

“Yep, but my dad made me stop when he realized I liked the uniforms more than the playing.” He grins, and it’s just so strangely _Donut_ that Washington - well, he doesn’t frown. They sit in silence, for a minute, and then two, and to Wash’s surprise he doesn’t feel the need to break it. He looks around the hospital room and it’s just a hospital room. The ghosts in his head are just murmurs. Donut picks up his helmet and examines it, muttering something about color aesthetics, and on impulse Wash asks, “Why aren’t you wearing your armor?”

Donut turns the helmet to inspect the rest of the yellow highlights. He shrugs. “Dunno. I mean, yeah, I do know, it just… doesn’t make much sense. I guess… it’s felt pretty heavy, recently.” He rubs the back of his neck with one hand. “It’s not any heavier than before, though, not really, so I know it’s all in my head. Pretty silly, huh?”

Washington looks around at the gray armor in pieces around him. The helmet in Donut’s calloused hand.

“It’s really not,” he says, and something lifts off his chest at the grateful smile Donut sends his way.

He opens his mouth - closes it. Comes to a decision and feels his resolve harden. “Tucker punched me too, you know.”

Donut blinks twice, and then raises an eyebrow. “Well, yeah, Wash, fighting is kind of what we do.”

“No, that’s not - over you, I mean. He punched me over you. When he thought I killed you, he beat the shit out of me.” He shrugs. “I guess it feels… even, now that you’ve punched me for him. I kind of feel better, actually.”

Washington expects to look up into Donut’s blue gaze and find it watery and red, but it still hits him, somehow. He cries so easily, so sincerely, Wash is almost jealous. “Tucker… punched you for me?” He sniffles. “Really?”

“Yeah, Donut. He really did.”

Donut sobs once, twice, three times - he swallows the rest. Wipes his eyes and hiccups, loud and ugly, and Washington almost smiles. He doesn’t, but he _almost_ does, and that… that’ll have to be enough. He gives Donut’s shoulder a fond little shove. Donut shoves him back.

“Donut. Uncle Wash.”

Junior is standing in the doorway. His eyes are on Washington. His voice is grave.

“Church found them. Let’s go.”

—

Washington knew he’d feel something when he heard Felix’s voice, but the hatred that riptides through him when he hears _“How’d they get this channel?”_ hissed over the radio is so astonishingly strong it nearly blinds him. Somewhere in the back of his mind he wonders how the others feel, Junior to his left, Carolina just behind him, Caboose, the Reds, and the generals further back, the Sangheili forming a solid wall behind them all. Epsilon talks for almost a full minute and he barely hears it over the roaring in his ears. The rolling nimbus of hate subsides only long enough for him to respond to Hargrove’s voice, exactly as he remembers it.

“Actually,” he says, with more acid than he can help, “we just wanted to read you a letter.”

“Take it away, Church,” says Donut.

Junior says nothing.

Epsilon clears his throat.

“Dear Chairman,

It has come to our attention that you have declared war on the planet Chorus. We do _not_ regret to inform you that this is a really shitty idea. Not only found a way to make an enemy of an entire planet that can now focus its undivided attention on you, but you have also somehow managed to make enemies of us by killing one of our own and failing to kill the rest of us. Which, in case you weren’t already aware, is _really fucking bad for you._ So, dear Chairman, to you and your idiotic mercenaries, we would like to say: come and get us, motherfuckers. We’re waiting for you.

“Sincerely, the incredibly pissed off and ready to fuck you up Red and Blue soldiers of Project Freelancer.”

Junior steps forward.

“PS,” he says, in throaty, glottal English. “Felix. I am going to fucking _eviscerate_ you.”

A beat, and then Felix’s voice, impossible to tell whether the tone is terrified or delighted: “Oh _shit,_ you’re Tucker’s _bastard-”_

Washington barely hears the hiss of the energy sword before it’s drowned out by a roar that shakes his very bones. Between one blink and the next the computer is in smoking, sparking ruins, slashed right down the middle in one swing, and Tucker’s ghost is so strong in his head and in his ears yelling _fuck you Basebook_ that it nearly takes his breath away.

“Wow,” Says doctor Grey. She’s standing a foot away from what used to be the computer. “Good thing we decided not to make the call with the AI, huh? _That_ could’ve been bad.”

She laughs; no one else does. Junior rounds on the group, shoulders high, head low, knees bent. He’s practically vibrating with rage, and he snarls something in Sangheili too fast for Washington to catch.

“I don’t - I don’t think that’s possible, Junior,” says Donut. “Is it? I mean, I really don’t think-”

“Donut. _Translation.”_ Carolina looks between them and straightens her shoulders, taking charge. “ _We’ll_ tell you if it’s possible or not.”

“He’s-” Donut’s face is pale, his eyes wide. He licks his lips. “He wants… he wants Church. He wants a neural implant, like you Freelancers. He…”

He trails off, and no one presses him for more information. Junior stands tall, defiant, daring anyone to deny his demands. In the stunned silence, Washington notes, vaguely, that Epsilon hasn’t said one word.

“…Yeah,” says Grif into the silence. “Not gonna lie, but I’m not too _thrilled_ with that plan. Does anyone else feel less than thrilled with that plan?”

All red team hands go up, and this seems to shake the room of it’s stupor. Washington is still struggling with it.

“Junior, that can’t be done.” Carolina says firmly. A low rumble begins to build in the Sangheili’s thorax, but the Freelancer is not intimidated. “You don’t have the neural implant necessary for an AI, and even if that weren’t a problem, all the AI were designed for human brains. It’s impossible.”

“Actually, it’s completely possible,” All eyes turn to doctor Grey. She’s nearly vibrating herself, though Wash suspects for a different reason. “I’ve studied Sangheili battlemaster nervous system once or twice, and based on what I’ve seen of Agent Washington’s neural implant, I’m confident that I could create a safe integration between Epsilon and Mr. Tucker here!” Wash winces at that, and is fairly certain he’s not the only one. “I would be thrilled to try it on a real Sangheili. So yeah, totally doable!” A beat. “At least, theoretically.”

“Hold on,” Carolina holds up her hands as if to physically hold them back, which, actually, might be pretty literal, if the aggression in Junior’s posture is anything to go by. Against his conscious will Washington feels his own body shift to match his stance. “Everyone calm down. Junior, this is not a decision to be taken lightly.”

Junior growls. “Do not patronize me, Freelancer. I am no idiot child.”

“I’m not patronizing you. I’m telling you the truth.”

“I am aware of the risks.”

“No, I don’t think you are.” Junior angles his shoulders down and forward, all intimidation, and Carolina meets him squarely. “We have no idea how you or Epsilon will react to a neural interface.”

Grey says, “Well, actually-”

“No offense, doctor, but have you ever had an AI in your head?” Grey says nothing. “Right. I’ve had _three._ Washington has had one. He can tell you how dangerous this is, and that’s in a _human_ brain.”

Junior’s head swivels to him, and past the haze he’s still wrestling Wash manages to say, “She’s not wrong, Junior. You need to really consider this.”

“Church was in my father’s head for his final moments. If you think I haven’t _considered_ this then you are mistaken.”

“Okay, yeah, but. Yes, okay, but see.” Washington didn’t forget Caboose was in the room, because he can’t, but it feels like a near thing. The blue soldier wrings his hands anxiously. “As Church’s best friend, I think Church should have a say in what happens to Church. Yes.”

And there Epsilon is beside him, silent and still. His gaze is locked on Junior, teal armor washed gold through the visor’s reflection. Washington stares at Epsilon staring at Junior, at the flash of teal holo-light gone as soon as he blinks, and knows his answer before he says it himself.

“Do it.”

—

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thoughts? Comments? Complaints? Any particular part you liked? Should I continue it at all, y/n?

**Author's Note:**

> [Got the idea for Tucker’s scars/tattoos from punishandenslavesuckers's fic, http://punishandenslavesuckers.tumblr.com/post/80704436583/something-tucker-wash-related. Read it, it's wonderful.]


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